Where The River Runs Into Your Keeping
by tielan
Summary: Nearly six hours later, beating up punching bags in the workout room, Steve realises he's jealous. Of a slap. Given by Maria Hill.


**NOTES**: Written for a "30 Days" challenge on Tumblr - since they're not exactly an easy pairing to find, I figured I'd give it a go... Let's see if I can sustain it!

**where the river runs into your keeping**

It's not that Steve has a hand fetish. Not at all.

_Just Lieutenant Hill's hands,_ says the little voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like an internal Tony Stark. Which is exactly what Steve _doesn't_ need when dealing with Maria Hill.

The first time he remembers noticing her is on the helicarrier bridge, her arms folded in contained disbelief as she asked Stark when he became an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics. Against the dark of her uniform, her hands showed slim and strong, and although Steve was concentrating on Stark's sardonic query - _didn't anyone else do the reading?_ - he remembers noticing.

When she's surveying the bridge, her hands at rest are on her hips. When she's considering a mission, she presses the index and middle fingers of her left hand against her lower lip, her eyes narrowed. At the conference table, her hands stay folded in front of her, on top of the mission reports. When she's angry or annoyed, she folds her arms and her fingertips splay on her forearms.

In a firefight, her hands cradle the gun as she fires off shot after shot after shot, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

When she slaps Stark, her fingers mark his cheek for nearly twenty minutes afterwards. And Steve finds his gaze drawn to Stark's face and the print of her hand there, something coiling in his gut.

Nearly six hours later, beating up punching bags in the workout room, Steve realises he's jealous. Of a slap. Given by Maria Hill.

She doesn't touch Steve. Ever. She manhandles Stark, and shakes hands with Barton. She grabs Natasha by the shoulders to shake her out of shock, and plants her hand over Banner's when he fiddles with his glasses.

Steve tells himself it's for the best.

If she touched him, he might reach for her.

Late on an October afternoon in Sydney, the Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park are crowded with people under the twinkling lanterns strung up beneath the spreading trees.

Dressed in suits and shirts, looking like many other couples here, Maria stands close, her shoulder turned towards him, her gaze scanning the crowd as though she's looking for friends.

The man they're hunting is no friend to SHIELD. Two weeks ago, Stefen Casimir hired a group of mercenaries to steal a case of alien DNA samples from a facility in Wisconsin. They've traced him halfway around the world, and down here to Australia where he has a half-sister in Double Bay and a multitude of connections to the criminal underworld.

Steve has studied the photos of Casimir until he could identify the man in his sleep. But the only person SHIELD knows has seen Casimir in the flesh and lived to tell the tale is Maria Hill – and that was eight years ago when she was a young agent out in the field.

Locate, identify and confirm – that's all they're meant to do tonight. It's the job of local SHIELD agents to tail him from there.

He has the brief in his head, knows the mission in his mind as his gaze shifts left, picking through the business people, students, and families who've come out for nothing more than a spring night out and a good meal in company, and have no idea that an international bio-terrorist sits among them.

It's not until Maria starts and turns, and cotton ruches under his fingers that Steve realises his body has hijacked conscious thought, sneaking his hand around her upper arm so the warmth of her skin seeps through her shirt and into his palm.

"Have you found them?"

"No." He drops his hand and curls his fingers in on themselves, as though he could hold the warmth of her in his palm. "I thought—"

Maria frowns a little, but says nothing, exhaling as she turns back to the crowd. "He's here somewhere. He's got to be here—"

Steve's head turns when she breaks off, following the direction she's looking, but he can't see Casimir. And he can't seem to control his hand, either – it's curved back around her arm again. This time, though, she doesn't turn, doesn't seem to notice.

"He's in the VIP pavilion." And without a further look in Steve's direction, she starts off towards the picket-fenced area lit by Chinese lanterns and furnished with tables and chairs.

He steps after her, reaching out. His fingers catch hers, and he slides his hand into hers. Her fingers twitch as skin touches skin, but she doesn't shake him off. Instead her fingers close around his, interlocking thumbs, a firm, cool grip that leads him through the sea of strangers like a lighthouse in a storm.

Casimir is indeed sitting at the table with several others, and Maria's gaze drifts across him as they pass by the VIP pavilion before she turns to look up at Steve.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure." It's a prearranged signal - his confirmation of her sighting. The man's jaw is blurry with the start of a beard, but it's Casimir.

The next minute Maria is on the phone, turning her head to survey the park once again, but her hand stays in his.

"Hey. We're at the VIP section, three o'clock. Where are you? Really? Okay, we'll see you soon." The person on the other end of the phone – an agent with the job of making the right noises to fill in the conversation – hangs up and so does she. Then she tilts her head up at Steve, speculative and thoughtful. "I guess you're hungry?"

"I'm always hungry." The curse of his metabolism.

Maria doesn't quite smile, but the stern line of her mouth softens before she starts off in the direction of one of the corner stalls. "We have a contact working one of the stalls. Let's see what she can get you."

Steve lets himself be led away through the crowds, but he laces his fingers into hers for a better grip.

**fin**


End file.
